I hope everyone has had a lovely holiday, for those who celebrate one, and a bright start to the new year. For me it’s been up and down as I’ve come to expect lately. I had a terrible blow before the holidays when the dream of the crafts co-op for Arab-American women in Brooklyn that I’d dedicated 10 months of my life to advocating and building dissipated with a change in management at the social service agency I’d been working with. I’m devastated over the collapse of my vision and frustrated at all the hard work lost, but telling myself to be resilient and find another way. That’s led to thoughts of going back to school–to learn Arabic, get my MBA (bleh!), my MSW or a Master’s in Middle Eastern studies or somesuch which would be the most interesting but maybe the least practical.

This is a delicate subject but I can also foresee that I am stepping into a path where ethnic and religious origin may always be an issue–with my peers, that is, not my clients! I’m a white woman without the kind of ingrained understanding of Arab culture that comes from being born and raised on the inside. A do-gooder.